Strengthening traceability in the Kotabaru shrimp fishery

Amount: £47, 926

This project will enable the Indonesian South Kalimantan shrimp fishery to improve data collection and implement a system to record which vessels catch has come from. White prawn and spot prawn are caught by traditional fishers across South Kalimantan. The catch is then collected by a middleman in each village before being sold to food manufacturer PT. Sekar Laut Tbk.

The South Kalimantan shrimp fishery has been in a fishery improvement project since 2017, which is being implemented by PT. Sekar Laut, Tbk in collaboration with Yayasan WWF Indonesia.

The fishery has received funding from the Fish for Good program, which helped small-scale fisheries in developing economies to work towards MSC certification. Fish for Good was a four-year project which supported more than 25 fisheries across Indonesia, South Africa and Mexico, with funding from the Dutch Postcode Lottery.

It has also been verified through the In-Transition to MSC program in 2021, making it eligible for the Transition Assistance Fund. This funding will help the fishery to make the improvements needed to meet the MSC Fisheries Standard and enter assessment in 2026.

PT. Sekar Laut Tbk want to source MSC certified sustainable shrimps from South Kalimantan and achieve MSC Chain of Custody certification so their products can be sold with the MSC blue label. However, to achieve this the shrimp fishery must first make improvements to the sustainability of its fishing practices and a robust system must be place to enable PT. Sekar Laut Tbk to identify where the shrimp have been supplied from.

What the project will do

This Ocean Stewardship Funded project will help to improve the collection of data in the shrimp fishery, including data on the different species caught and levels of bycatch. On-board time-lapse cameras will be installed to help identify whether or not the fishery is interacting with endangered, threatened and protected species. Tracking devices will also be added to vessels so that more data can be gathered on the different areas that the shrimp are harvested from.

The project will also support the registration of hundreds of vessels operating in the fishery and ensure each vessel can be formally identified. This will make sure catch can be segregated and identified, allowing suppliers to provide food manufacturers with information on where the catch has come from.